1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to magnet holders for temporarily holding fasteners to tools.
2. Background and Discussion of the Prior Art
The tool art desired accessories for temporarily holding fasteners such as screws or bolts until the tool and fastener were in place and fastening was completed. The tool art looked to magnetic holders to temporarily hold the fastener until the manual or electric tool drove the fastener into the desired location. Such accessories were particularly desired in hard to reach work locations, such as where the user's fingers were ill suited to temporarily hold the fastener.
It was known in the prior art, as shown in FIGS. 1-4B, to provide a generally cylindrical nylon holder 10 formed with a inner cylindrical recess 11 having an inner circumferential protuberance 18 and bottom through hole 12, and three minute downwardly tapered ribs 13 (typical) circumferentially disposed at 120.degree. on a cylindrical peripheral wall 14, for compressible insertion in a cylindrical recess or well 15 of e.g. a socket wrench 16. Ribs 13 are of the order of at most a few thousandths of an inch and are barely visible to the naked eye, and are shown as greatly disproportionately enlarged in FIGS. 1-4B. Ribs 13 compress when inserted into specially machined cylindrical recess or well 15 and secures the nylon holder 10 containing a cylindrical magnet 17 disposed in the inner cylindrical recess 11 which deformably compresses inner protuberance 18. This prior art construction required a specially machined cylindrical tool well 15, and cooperatively, minutely tapered ribs 13, for a compression fit.
Other compressible fit magnet holders for socket wrenches are shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,542,320, granted Aug. 6, 1996 to Vasichek, et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,277,088, granted Jan. 11, 1994 to Vasichek, et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,199,334, granted Apr. 6, 1993 to Vasichek, et al.; U.S. 5,146,814, granted Sep. 15, 1992 to Vasichek, et al.; and U.S. Des. 369,075, granted Apr. 23, 1996 to Vasichek, et al.
While the foregoing tool magnet holder constructions provided compressible fits, the holder and/or the magnet would with continued use be undesirably dislodged or removed. Insofar as the magnet had to remain intact in place over extensive heavy duty use, the art required a tool magnet holder which more securely, and more permanently, held the magnet in place in the tool than heretofore achieved, and yet also provided a cleaner more effective holder and hand tool design.
It is therefore a principal object of the present invention to provide an improved tool magnet holder.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a tool magnet holder which securely holds the magnet in a tool over an extended period of heavy duty use.
It is still another object of the invention to provide a tool magnet holder and hand tool combination which cooperatively highly compressively holds a magnet therein and which holder itself is compressively held in an efficiently designed hand tool recess.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a tool magnet holder as afore-described which is of unitary one piece molded plastic construction.
It is still a further object of the present invention to provide a tool magnet holder as aforesaid which is of practical design and construction so as to be readily molded of compressible non-magnetic material, and yet which is practical and serviceable over a long period of time in heavy duty use.